An
Auckland woman had two children taken off her by social workers after a
hospital laboratory performed the wrong test on her four-year-old son's
urine and used the results as "proof" she drugged him, according
to a top chemist.

The
woman, who cannot be named, had four children removed from her care in the
United Kingdom in 1996 after a court ruled that she suffered from
Munchausen Syndrome by Proxy (MSBP) - a controversial diagnosis said to
cause parents to induce or fabricate illnesses in their children to get
attention.

British
authorities alerted Child, Youth and Family (CYF) after the woman married
a New Zealander, moved to Auckland and had two more children.

Social
workers removed the pre-schoolers in August 2000 after routine tests -
done when her four-year-old son was admitted to Starship children's
hospital with bronchitis - revealed he had been given an adult sedative
zopiclone.

The
Family Court agreed and both parents lost custody. The children are now
being cared for by family and, because the mother has declined to exercise
her right to supervised access, she has not seen them for almost two
years.

Former
Auckland University analytical chemist Mike Fitzpatrick says the hospital
laboratory, LabPlus, breached international standards by relying on a
screening test, thin layer chromatography (TLC), and did not confirm its
results with a more accurate test.

Fitzpatrick
took zopiclone and a drug the boy had been prescribed for an ear
infection, co-trimoxazole, and did a TLC test on his own urine. He found
that the two drugs were "indistinguishable".

"I
was staggered that they relied on TLC," Fitzpatrick told the Sunday
Star-Times. "That wouldn't be good enough to test for dope in the
horse racing industry, it wouldn't last three seconds in court and that
mother has had her children taken off her on the basis of it."

The
government-owned laboratory Environmental Science and Research (ESR) that
does testing for criminal cases, but was not involved in this case, said
it would normally use a higher level test known as gas chromatography mass
spectrometry (GC-MS) and would be "very reluctant" to rely on
TLC.

LabPLus
did a GC-MS test but zopiclone was not detected. The laboratory's senior
scientific specialist Ron Couch told the Family Court GC-MS could not
detect zopiclone in urine but Fitzpatrick and ESR experts say that is
wrong.

Fitzpatrick,
who did not give evidence at the original hearing, prepared an extensive
affidavit for a hearing at the High Court in mid-2001 that was a prelude
to a possible appeal. However, the woman's lawyers submitted only a brief
affidavit and Justice Penlington ruled that it was inadmissible because it
should have been submitted to the Family Court. The appeal was dropped.

In
a statement, Auckland District Health Board chief medical officer David
Sage said any challenge to the LabPlus evidence should be made in the
"normal legal forum".

The
revelations come amid growing disquiet about the validity of the MSBP
diagnosis. The founder of the theory, Sir Roy Meadow, 70, faces being
struck off over his evidence in three high-profile cases involving British
women who were subsequently cleared of charges of murdering their babies.

Sally
Clark, 39, was released in January this year after serving almost three
years in jail for the murder of her two children. Trupti Patel, 35, was
acquitted of smothering her three babies earlier this year and Angela
Cannings, 40 - sentenced to life for killing her two children - was
released this month.

Dr
David Southall, the British paediatrician who diagnosed the Auckland
woman, faces three charges of serious misconduct. The disciplinary process
is private, but it is understood the General Medical Council has agreed to
consider complaints against Southall from the Auckland woman and Sally
Clark's husband.

The
British opposition spokesman on health, Lord Frederick Howe, told the
Sunday Star-Times the woman's case was a "gross miscarriage of
justice and there is no sound reason whatsoever to justify the removal of
her children."